Canadian Broadband → Opinions wanted

On Vmedia as an ISP (cable) and for IPTV and phone services (downtown Toronto location). Their current package with all three svc's combined looks good re price but I'm mostly unfamiliar with their reputation.

TIA

There are more than a few threads in here... I recommend you read them all and then add a grain of salt.

Maybe a whole ton of salt!

As a company, VMedia will try to provide you with a good service, but as is true with every independent ISP, they're at the mercy of the incumbents who 'own' the infrastructure, and have been known to make life miserable for the customers of the independents. If you currently have a stable connection with another ISP and consistently decent speed ( DL 10mbits + ), IPTV and VOIP will work just fine for you. If you have an unstable or slow connection, buckle in for a long hard ride.

That said, any service delivered by internet is subject to intermittent unexpected outages; even with the incumbent ISPs. It's best to have a backup... a cell phone, and maybe an OTA antenna, or a lot of DVDs for when the internet is out. I have found that books work well, even during power failures.

One of VMedia's IPTV advantages is a cloud PVR. At first, I thought this was lame because it only included stations which are broadcast over-the-air. I prefer a client-side HDD PVR that can record all stations. The other night we had a storm, so we turned off the TV and all other equipment. On the following day, we were able to watch the shows we missed; something we couldn't have done with a HDD PVR.

So, as iamhere says, look through the topics here, then also look in the VMedia forums »forum.vmedia.ca/ and see if they're someone you're comfortable to deal with. Also, if you buy the VBox at Canada Computers, you'll get two free months of IPTV; you'll just have to pay for the internet ( one of the least expensive ISPs ) and any extra TV theme packs.

Tnks. esp re info on buying the vbox discount. My current setup with Teksavvy is very stable and I have no complaints at all w/ 25/2 package. Singularly the only reason I am thinking of switching is because of IPTV. My OTA antenna is ok but there are days when reception is not great due to atmospheric conditions and I really want to get TSN which is otherwise only available at extremely low quality from various sports/tv streaming websites that are probably illegal anyway.

I realize you're looking for opinions about the Toronto area, but for what it's worth, I have VMedia 25/2 cable service in Ottawa, and am relatively happy with it. The only issues I get are occasional disconnects at night when watching media on my tablet, and I'm 99% sure that that's actually caused by the fact that there's about 40 wireless networks on the 2.4GHz frequencies in range, and my tablet doesn't have 5GHz wireless. I've *never* noticed a problem with my laptop, which does have 5GHz wireless, nor my cell phone, which also has dual band wireless.

As for the TV -- that was one of the main reasons I went with VMedia instead of somebody else, but honestly we've never gotten around to buying the service. I've seen some really bad-looking demos at Canada Computers (the one on Upper James in Hamilton, the two times I've been to see it there, they had artefacting issues and the picture just looked *bad*, but I was comparing against uncompressed OTA HDTV broadcast, and even Bell Fibe looks bad by comparison), but since we're rarely home and have Netflix and about 600 DVD's and BluRays for when we *are* home, we just can't be bothered. That may change come the fall, because my partner is a fan of NFL.

For the home phone... VOIP is VOIP. There's no bundling discount for going with a triple play on VMedia, so I'd suggest going with a cheaper option like Fongo or FreePhoneLine.ca, unless you need the world calling or to reach numbers that aren't in their free calling area. I went with Fongo because I can't be bothered to worry about configuring my ATA for myself, and want a support line I can complain at if things go down.